AUNT RACHEL'S MISHAPS
The week slipped away, and still no tidings of Ida. The house seemed
lonely without her. Not until then did they understand how largely she
had entered into their life and thoughts. But worse even than the sense
of loss was the uncertainty as to her fate.
"It is time that we took some steps about finding Ida," the cooper said.
"I would like to go to Philadelphia myself, to make inquiries about her,
but I am just now engaged upon a job which I cannot very well leave, and
so I have concluded to send Jack."
"When shall I start?" exclaimed Jack.
"To-morrow morning," answered his father.
"What good do you think it will do," interposed Rachel, "to send a mere
boy like Jack to Philadelphia?"
"A mere boy!" repeated her nephew, indignantly.
"A boy hardly sixteen years old," continued Rachel. "Why, he'll need
somebody to take care of him. Most likely you'll have to go after him."
"What's the use of provoking a fellow so, Aunt Rachel?" said Jack. "You
know I'm 'most eighteen. Hardly sixteen! Why, I might as well say you're
hardly forty, when we all know you're fifty."
"Fifty!" ejaculated the scandalized spinster. "It's a base slander. I'm
only thirty-seven."
"Maybe I'm mistaken," said Jack, carelessly. "I didn't know exactly how
old you were; I only judged from your looks."
At this point, Rachel applied a segment of a pocket handkerchief to her
eyes; but, unfortunately, owing to circumstances, the effect instead of
being pathetic, as she intended it to be, was simply ludicrous.
It so happened that a short time previous, the inkstand had been
partially spilled upon the table, through Jack's carelessness and this
handkerchief had been used to sop it up. It had been placed
inadvertently upon the window seat, where it had remained until Rachel,
who was sitting beside the window, called it into requisition. The ink
upon it was by no means dry. The consequence was, that, when Rachel
removed it from her eyes, her face was discovered to be covered with ink
in streaks mingling with the tears that were falling, for Rachel always
had a plentiful supply of tears at command.
The first intimation the luckless spinster had of her mishap was
conveyed in a stentorian laugh from Jack.
He looked intently at the dark traces of sorrow on his aunt's face--of
which she was yet unconscious--and doubling up, went off into a perfect
paroxysm of laughter.
"Jack!" said his mother, reprovingly, for she had not observed the cause
of his amusement, "it's improper for you to laugh at your aunt in such a
rude manner."
"Oh, I can't help it, mother. Just look at her."
Thus invited, Mrs. Harding did look, and the rueful expression of
Rachel, set off by the inky stains, was so irresistibly comical, that,
after a hard struggle, she too gave way, and followed Jack's example.
Astonished and indignant at this unexpected behavior of her
sister-in-law, Rachel burst into a fresh fit of weeping, and again had
recourse to the handkerchief.
"This is too much!" she sobbed. "I've stayed here long enough, if even
my sister-in-law, as well as my own nephew, from whom I expect nothing
better, makes me her laughingstock. Brother Timothy, I can no longer
remain in your dwelling to be laughed at; I will go to the poorhouse and
end my miserable existence as a common pauper. If I only receive
Christian burial when I leave the world, it will be all I hope or expect
from my relatives, who will be glad enough to get rid of me."
The second application of the handkerchief had so increased the effect,
that Jack found it impossible to check his laughter, while the cooper,
whose attention was now drawn to his sister's face, burst out in a
similar manner.
This more amazed Rachel than Martha's merriment.
"Even you, Timothy, join in ridiculing your sister!" she exclaimed,
in an "_Et tu, Brute_" tone.
"We don't mean to ridicule you, Rachel," gasped her sister-in-law, "but
we can't help laughing."
"At the prospect of my death!" uttered Rachel, in a tragic tone. "Well,
I'm a poor, forlorn creetur, I know. Even my nearest relations make
sport of me, and when I speak of dying, they shout their joy to my
face."
"Yes," gasped Jack, nearly choking, "that's it exactly. It isn't your
death we're laughing at, but your face."
"My face!" exclaimed the insulted spinster. "One would think I was a
fright by the way you laugh at it."
"So you are!" said Jack, with a fresh burst of laughter.
"To be called a fright to my face!" shrieked Rachel, "by my own nephew!
This is too much. Timothy, I leave your house forever."
The excited maiden seized her hood; which was hanging from a nail, and
was about to leave the house when she was arrested in her progress
toward the door by the cooper, who stifled his laughter sufficiently to
say: "Before you go, Rachel, just look in the glass."
Mechanically his sister did look, and her horrified eyes rested upon a
face streaked with inky spots and lines seaming it in every direction.
In her first confusion Rachel jumped to the conclusion that she had been
suddenly stricken by the plague. Accordingly she began to wring her
hands in an excess of terror, and exclaimed in tones of piercing
anguish:
"It is the fatal plague spot! I am marked for the tomb. The sands of my
life are fast running out."
This convulsed Jack afresh with merriment, so that an observer might,
not without reason, have imagined him to be in imminent danger of
suffocation.
"You'll kill me, Aunt Rachel! I know you will," he gasped.
"You may order my coffin, Timothy," said Rachel, in a sepulchral voice;
"I shan't live twenty-four hours. I've felt it coming on for a week
past. I forgive you for all your ill-treatment. I should like to have
some one go for the doctor, though I know I'm past help."
"I think," said the cooper, trying to look sober, "you will find the
cold-water treatment efficacious in removing the plague spots, as you
call them."
Rachel turned toward him with a puzzled look. Then, as her eyes rested
for the first time upon the handkerchief she had used, its appearance at
once suggested a clew by which she was enabled to account for her own.
Somewhat ashamed of the emotion which she had betrayed, as well as the
ridiculous figure which she had cut, she left the room abruptly, and did
not make her appearance again till the next morning.
After this little episode, the conversation turned upon Jack's
approaching journey.
"I don't know," said his mother, "but Rachel is right. Perhaps Jack
isn't old enough, and hasn't had sufficient experience to undertake such
a mission."
"Now, mother," expostulated Jack, "you ain't going to side against me,
are you?"
"There is no better plan," said his father, quietly.